Growing up, my mom always said I had an evil eye. I never knew exactly what she was talking about until I saw it for myself. I think Jocelyn practices her look when she’s alone in her room so that she can bring it out and hit me over the head with her displeasure. The other morning she decided that she only wanted Daddy to pick her up out of the crib. He gave her a bottle and left her with me in the living room so that he could go take a shower. This did not go over well. First, there was screaming, then there was stomping, and lying face down on the floor. She stopped screaming and stood, facing the kitchen, and she gave me that look out of the corner of her eye. I did this. I forced her Daddy out of the room and I was going to pay for it. Sipping my coffee, I ignored her and focused on the morning news. She slowly walked my direction, slowly, until she was right in front of me. I stared past her at the television. She turned away from me and once again glared at me out of the corner of her eye. Right there, two feet in front of me.

Last night Khary tried to distract Aja from her hunger by putting her on his chest. I was just finishing my dinner and was moments away from making her bottle. He cooed and oohed and ewed, getting a few price smiles. I walked over to get a kiss and she turned her head just the slightest. She arched her back and looked up at me. That look said it all. Get Me My Bottle Woman! It looked kind of like this:

Okay, so that’s obviously not my child. I got this picture off the internet. If I tried to capture the phenomenon that is one of my wonderful ladies giving me the look they would probably smile at me out of spite. It’s a good thing that I prefer them smiling.

04/28/2010

The Cold knocked on our front door over the weekend, barged its way in, unpacked three oversized bags in our living room, sat its big butt down on our couch, and then had the nerve to ask for drink. Luckily, The Cold has not transformed into The Sickness. But both babies have been struggling to fight it off, and Khary has also fallen victim. The worst part about Khary being sick is that I have to cook. I actually love to cook, but I prefer to do it on days when Jocelyn has been in daycare or on the weekends. Those are the days that I’m not run ragged, when the room is free from tantrums, or there are more hands to handle the tag-team I-need-attention-right-now effect that these girls are mastering. I am also on guard, since I could get sucker punched by The Cold at any moment. And when I go down it’s never pretty.

Something that is pretty: the sight of baby Aja rolling over onto her belly for the first time. She did this all on her own.

04/25/2010

We finally made it to our first game of the season. As they say, it’s the process that matters, not necessarily the end result. The A’s lost and the crowd was miniscule. The bright side to the lack of fans was that it was easy for us to navigate a stroller through the stadium, and Jocelyn was able to spend the last two innings running around with her Uncle D and Aunt Holly. Aja spent the first few innings completely enthralled with the noise and colors and crazy revelers. Then she fought the call of sleep. And fought some more. She finally gave in at the beginning of the ninth inning, threw her head in my chest, and fell sound asleep.

When we got home we discovered Jocelyn’s favorite part of the day. Her new stuffy, who we’ve named Ralph, is her new sidekick. It’s the first time that she has immediately attached herself to a toy, and it’s adorable.

Baseball is big is this house (I would say the biggest sport; my husband would say football). It’s a long-term goal of ours to visit all the ballparks in the country. This goal is harder to reach with babies, but we figure one a year is a good plan. We’ve got a long way to go.

Four down: Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle

It’s unrealistic to think we’ll hit a new park this season, but we can mark this whole season as new for Aja.